New house - no planning permission for extension - who pays?

[Florence1960]

My niece is buying a house, a few weeks into the procedure. It has come to light that the vendors didn’t get planning permission to build the extension at the side of the house. Apparently if it were being built now, it wouldn’t need permission. When it was done , it would have needed permission.
AIBU to think that the vendor should buy indemnity insurance, to cover in the event that the council or whoever decide to pursue the issue?
Has anyone been in this situation? How did it pan out?

This is 100% a question for a solicitor with knowledge of the whole situation.

I would be guessing it might not have building regs either... which would be another red flag and could be very stressful/expensive to fix if the whole thing was poorly built/dangerous. Could also cause a problem with insurance/mortgage/re-sell.

I had this when we bought our house. It only came to light a couple of weeks before exchange whilst we were in holiday in Canada! I instructed my solicitor to purchase the indemnity insurance then seenif the vendors were prepared to pay for it, which they did. It cost about £150.

Someone in my old street build a large conservatory didn't get planning put the house up for sale and theirs was thrown up. They then applied for planning which was declined, the choice was remove conservatory and resell or keep it and stay.
My point being you don't want your niece buying this without planning in place and having to bare costs further down the line

buyer walks away seller sorts

A friend of mine had an issue like this and they had no building regs and built over an open drain, she only found out afterwards unfortunately so she was left to sort but she was able to get compensation via solicitor as they had failed

How long has it been since the extension was built? I am assuming there haven’t been any complaints from the neighbours regarding the extension to the local authority?

We brought our house 17 years ago, it came up that there was no pp obtained for the conservatory, we queried it, the vendor produced the original invoice that proved the conservatory had been in situ for well over 7 years, the house is large so the conservatory would have been allowed under permitted development rules.

We brought the house.

I looked at a converted flat once that I liked but it turned out the large "roof terrace" had no planning permission and was not legal (as well as unsafe). I withdrew from the sale.

Your solicitor should advise you. It happens a lot. They should know how to tackle it, that’s why you pay them to do the conveyancing

Leave this to your solicitor to advise you.

However I recently sold a house with an extension that was around 50 years old but without any planning papers. I, as the vendor, paid for an indemnity policy (around £180) and that was that.

Brilliant advice and very interesting experiences, thanks so much. A previous sale fell through. We don’t know if this was a factor but I’ll tell her to get on to the solicitor and estate agent tomorrow.

I just bought and it turned out the whole house never got signed off - seller paid indemnity that can be passed on through all future sales.

I was fuming that I’d have to pay for indemnity insurance when we sold our house as there was no evidence that what they were claiming was an extension was indeed an extension and not part of the original house. And then found out the insurance cost £35 and happily paid so that the sale got moving again.